He was sitting, when I entered, not _at_, but _on_ the table, by the

side of his sherry and bitters. Volumes of smoke, _latakia_, and

something stronger, I could swear by the fragrance (and here I may

remark, in parenthesis, that if the London tobacconists kept up the

exorbitant price of cigars, as they have lately done, nobody will smoke

anything _but_ a short pipe very soon), curled upward from his mouth,

and I was just too late for some irresistible witticism which had

convulsed Miss Lushington with laughter. Indeed, that lady’s fair hand

was applied to her lips, as if to conceal or repress her hilarity, when

I entered. An Oriental woman’s idea of modesty is to cover her mouth;

and, indeed, to keep that organ shut, as much as possible, is no bad

custom for the sex to adopt. But why ladies of Miss Lushington’s social

standing should habitually express intense amusement by the same

gesture, I cannot take upon me to explain. When the teeth are black and

the hands white there may be reason for it; but Miss Lushington could

not fairly be accused of either of these specialities.

“Softly! How goes it?” exclaimed the new-comer, removing his pipe from

his mouth, and rolling off the table, and on to his legs, with a

coachmanlike action extremely difficult to acquire. “Give us your

flipper, old boy! Ah! I forgot you’d had your wing broken. Never mind;

might have been worse. Won’t your liquor up? Now, Miss L., look alive!

those sparklers of yours were made for use as well as ornament. What’s

our friend’s variety? An invalid ought to be taken care of, you know.

Draught three times a day, and the mixture _as_ before.”

Greeting my voluble acquaintance, whom I now recognised as young Mr.

Plumtree, of The Ashes, but of whom my previous knowledge did by no

means warrant such a familiarity as he was kind enough to display, with

a more stately and reserved demeanour than usual I lit my cigar, and

proceeded, in self-defence, to envelop my person in its fumes.

Without being a stickler for the more ceremonious forms of politeness,

or an advocate for the stilted dignity of the old school, I do not quite

relish the tendency of certain individuals to be so “gallows familiar,”

as a poor good-for-nothing friend of mine used to call it; nor do I see

that a man has a right to call me “Softly,” with no handle prefixed, the

third time he has ever met me in his life, “Gaudent prænomine molles

auriculæ,” quoth Horace; and he understood human nature, if anybody did.

Besides, I knew enough of the gentleman now occupying the bar, to have

no great wish to cultivate his further intimacy.

I had avoided him hitherto as much as possible. It seemed to be part of

the bad luck of the day that I should be thrown into his society now. To

have failed by thirty seconds in seeing Miss Merlin in the morning, and

find myself the boon companion of young Plumtree at noon, was surely a

combination of untoward circumstances which that individual himself

would have called “hard lines.”

As I smoked my cigar, rather sulkily, and watched my aversion making the

agreeable to Miss Lushington—a process at which, to do him justice, he

appeared singularly skilful,—I recalled in my mind all I knew of his

antecedents, and could not help congratulating myself, the while, that

he was no son of mine.

Young James Plumtree, then—or “Jovial Jem,” as he was called by his

familiars—was the only son of John Plumtree, of The Ashes, a most

respectable, and, I believe, unimpeachable country gentleman, living in

the vicinity of Soakington. I have always understood that the father was

a man of grave and particularly gentlemanlike demeanour, and, although

an excellent sportsman, extremely averse to anything approaching slang.

It was, therefore, perfectly natural that his son should turn out one of

the “loudest” and most uproarious rattles of his day.

The boy had an excellent education, too—at eight, a private tutor, who

could never keep him out of the stable, and into the pockets of whose

sad-coloured garments his pupil was continually putting white-mice and

such abnormal vermin—nay, on one occasion, this long-suffering Mentor

discovered a ferret in the tail of his coat, and an eel in the crown of

his hat; at twelve, transferred to Eton, where he was placed as low as

he possibly could be, and, notwithstanding repeated floggings, and

constant wiggings from “my tutor,” persevered in the study of natural

history with an ardour that could by no means be brought to harmonise

with the rules of that elegant college. Corporal punishment is—or at

least, in young Plumtree’s day, used to be—inflicted for the following

misdemeanours, of which he was habitually found guilty, viz.:

Entertaining fighting-dogs, at an outlay of a shilling per week, and

making use of the same in their combative capacity; associating, both in

and out of bounds, with cads and such low persons, with aggressive views

on personal property in the form of hares, pheasants, etc., at Stoke,

Burnham, Thames Ditton, and elsewhere; keeping singing-birds in a bureau

that ought to have been devoted to school-books, and white-mice in the

lower drawers of the same, along with clean linen; also, and this

partiality for ferrets was one of the boy’s most remarkable

characteristics, taking a female of that species into three-o’clock

school, and producing her, so to speak, in open court; finally, never,

under any circumstances, knowing one word of his lesson.

When Plumtree left college, the head master, who, like many other head

masters, had rather a weakness for a pickle in his heart, took him

kindly by the hand, and recommended him, with perfect single-mindedness,

to devote his energies to the habits of beasts and birds, and the study

of comparative anatomy, “the only mental labour, Plumtree,” added the

don, with extreme kindness, “for which you seem either qualified or

inclined.”

A lad of such tastes was pretty sure to be sent to one of the

universities: and after an interval of a delicious twelvewmonth at home,

during which period of relaxation the young ’squire not only destroyed

every rat in every barn within a day’s ride of The Ashes, but also made

acquaintance with every tap of beer, and struck up a friendship with

every blackguard, within the same distance, this promising acolyte was

entered at Brazen-Nose, and went up to keep his terms at Alma Mater, and

acquire whatever knowledge was most adapted to his intellectual hunger,

at that repository of learning.

Here, it is needless to observe, he rowed a great deal, smoked a great

deal, drank an enormous quantity of beer, and read not the least in the

world. He acquired, however, considerable proficiency in the difficult

art of driving a tandem, and could conceal boots and breeches under

loose pantaloons, when attending chapel on a hunting morning, more

dexterously than any undergraduate of his year.

He kept the drag, too, for one season, but found his mode of life too

dissipated to admit of the nerve requisite for that amusement. These

dare-devil young gentlemen, you see, go out for the express purpose of

breaking each other’s necks. They ride, of course, directly _at_ the

leading hound; but that quadruped, generally an old stager, and

stimulated by a red-herring steeped in aniseed, gives them plenty to do

before they can catch him. It is a point of honour, I am given to

understand, to turn away from nothing; and the man who can _get through_

his horse quickest, is esteemed to have won the laurels of the day. It

is scarcely possible to imagine an education more calculated to make a

_horseman_, and spoil a _sportsman_, than the Oxford drag.

When Plumtree renounced the mastership of this dashing establishment, he

devoted himself exclusively to driving, and became, if possible, more

_beery_ than before. For lectures he cherished an unaccountable

aversion, nor was it likely that the wit and learning of the schools

would prove very tempting to a man whose heart was habitually in the

cellars.

Well, of course, it came to a finish at last; and Jovial Jem was

rusticated; “Rusticated, by the Hookey!” to use his own remarkable

words, “and recommended not to come up again. Well out of it, too, in my

opinion: and as to another round, why if I do, I _do_; _but_ if I do,

I’m—!”

Old Plumtree was grievously disappointed, of course. By the way, I know

very few cases in which sons do not disappoint their fathers. I suppose

it would be difficult to persuade the latter that the former are not

exclusively in fault. Old Squaretoes lays down a course of conduct for

his child, totally irrespective of the feelings, inclination, and

disposition of the latter. Then, if young Squaretoes don’t fit the

groove, and slide easily down the metal, he is undutiful, disobedient,

ungrateful, everything that the Prodigal Son was, before he came to

eating husks amongst the swine. If young S. turn out “slow,” ten to one

but old S., in suicidal folly, wishes he “had a spice more devil in

him.” If he be fast, the governor shakes in his shoes, foreseeing debts,

bills, acceptances, renewals, and eventual penury. If he make a figure

in the world on his own wings, taking warning by Icarus, and scorning to

use the paternal pinions, his father is often jealous of his success.

If, on the contrary, he remain in secure and humble obscurity, then the

cry is, “Why, the lad has no spirit in him! Look at what I should have

done at his age, _and with his advantages_!” Good masters make good

servants. Unselfish and considerate fathers, more than people are aware

of, make attached and dutiful sons.

So Jovial Jem came home, and took up his abode at The Ashes, completely

upsetting the regularity of that establishment, where, in his absence,

everything went on like clockwork. For his own sake, Mr. Plumtree senior

gave his son a couple of rooms, shut off from the rest of the mansion by

double doors of baize, through which the fumes of latakia could not

possibly penetrate, and ordered the domestics to serve their young

master with breakfast and dinner at his own hours, when required, in his

own apartments. By this arrangement, the heir was wonderfully little in

his father’s way; and unless the pair happened to meet on a summer’s

morning, when the old one was going to his hay-field, fresh and rosy,

and the young one returning from a junketing, pale and exhausted, father

and son often did not see each other for weeks. Consequently, they got

on admirably. Young Plumtree swore “The Governor was a dear old bird;

crotchety of course, but a regular brick nevertheless;” and old

Plumtree, who always took a solemn pinch of snuff before he delivered

himself of a remark, was fond of stating, very slowly and distinctly,

that “Young men won’t settle at once. Can’t expect it, sir—can’t expect

it! But the lad’s got something in him. If we could only get _at_ it,

sir! if we could only get _at_ it!”

“I heard of your downer, old ’un,” this agreeable young gentleman

observed with great cordiality, transferring his attention from Miss

Lushington to myself. “Wasn’t out myself that day; couldn’t raise a

prad, or I’d have seen you picked up, and dissected, and all that. First

day I can get away from home, says I, I’ll just tool over and visit the

mutilated sportsman. Thought you’d be dull, you know, with nobody but

Miss Lushington, though she’s pleasant company too when she’s got her

stockings on right-side-in.”

“Come, that’s a good one,” observed the lady alluded to thus familiarly,

with a meaning glance. “As if you didn’t know of our late arrival! Oh,

you’re a deep one, Mr. Plumtree, you are!”

The young gentleman blushed, a real honest shame-faced blush, such as I

did not believe could have been raised, after six years of Eton and two

of Oxford, to save a man’s life. “Get out!” said he, chivalrously

ignoring the cause of his confusion. “None of your chaff, Miss L. Ain’t

I always ready to help a lame dog over a stile? Wouldn’t I drive a

hundred miles in a butcher’s cart without springs, to succour a

mutilated friend? Ain’t I pitiful, and tender, and soft-hearted? Come,

you know I am.”

“Indeed I know nothing of the kind,” replied the lady, bridling and

tossing her head. It was Miss Lushington’s plan, you see, always to give

her admirer what she called a “set-down” the moment they passed an

imaginary line of her own demarcation; so she proceeded, speaking very

distinctly, and with her lips set tight—

“If you’ve driven all this way only to talk nonsense to me, Mr.

Plumtree, you’ve wasted your time sadly. But you’ll never make me

believe _that_. _I_ know what I know; and others might know it too, if

so be as you was to take and rile me more than I think pleasant. And

you’re too late, after all,” added Miss L. viciously. “She was in the

fly an hour before you drove into the yard: why, bless you! she’s at the

top of the hunt by this time, and no more chance of coming up with her

than if she was the wind.”

Without pausing to consider what peculiar position in the chase Miss

Lushington intended to convey by her expression of the “top of the

hunt,” I shot a glance at Young Plumtree, who seemed, I thought, to

quail considerably under the volubility he had provoked. Indeed, strange

to say, he appeared completely “shut up,” and at a loss for a reply. A

horrible suspicion darted across me, lighting up, as such fancies do,

the previous darkness with a dazzling and momentary brilliance. Could

this unwelcome and unhappy young man be under the influence of a

hopeless attachment for Miss Merlin,—one of those unaccountable

infatuations of which we read in novels, but which, fortunately for the

general comfort of society, we so seldom meet with in real life?

And yet, why not? To be sure, judging from Quizby’s letter and his frank

acknowledgment of an attachment to her in his youth, the lady must have

arrived by this time at middle age, and Plumtree was a mere boy (for,

after all, a man of five-and-twenty is little more than a boy), actually

shaving for whiskers, top-dressing with balm of Columbia, and raising an

abundant crop of pimples as the result. A woman too, after she arrives

at a certain point of maturity, say five-and-thirty, remains for an

incredible period at that attractive stage of her charms. She has lost

indeed the bright freshness of youth; but if she has been really

handsome, she has gained in exchange a certain depth of colouring and

intensity of expression, which are equally efficient weapons of offence.

Then, while the passing years blunt her darts scarcely perceptibly,

every day adds to her experience and dexterity in their use. A

_coquette_ of twenty years’ standing is like an old _maître d’armes_ of

the Empire, cool, wary, dauntless, and skilful; _rusé_ in the art of

destruction, and taught by a hundred combats to take every advantage,

and never to throw a chance away. I have often thought, notwithstanding

the dancing exploit, a man would have been safer with Herodias’s

daughter than with Herodias herself.

Then a young man, if he once suffers himself to be captivated by a woman

considerably his senior, becomes rather childish, not to say imbecile,

in the process. He goes into leading-strings forthwith, and there is no

folly or extravagance of which he is incapable. Shall I ever forget what

a fool young Larkspur made of himself about old Lady Foxglove, who might

have been his mother, and looked as if she _had_ been his wet-nurse? Nor

can I cease to regret the fate of my poor friend Capon, who left college

to run away with Mrs. Mallard the actress, at a period when that lady

had become too aged and infirm for genteel comedy parts at any of the

theatres royal, and of whom I last heard at a French watering-place,

living in cheap lodgings at the head of a grown-up family not his own,

nor indeed, unless scandal be more scandalous than usual, the issue of

the talented Mr. Mallard deceased.

I looked at young Plumtree with a kind of loathing pity. I thought of

what his deplorable state would be, when all the pleasures of his

present existence should have palled upon him in the pursuit of the

unattainable; when ’baccy should have lost its soothing properties, and

there should be no more charm in beer; when dogs might “delight to bark

and bite,” and Plumtree, _quantum mutatus_, would care not which

half-stifled champion was dragged gurgling and snarling “across the

line;” when the three-pound terrier, eating its own weight a dozen times

over in rats, would no longer excite his garrulous plaudits as he hung

half muzzy over the pit; and to shoot pigeons for a fat pig, or see a

man trundling a wheelbarrow backwards, and picking up stones with his

mouth, would be equally tasteless and insipid; nay, when counting out

the game-cock himself, prone on the square-cut turf, but of mettle

invincible, from the top of the clean-cut comb to the points of his

steel spurs, would be considered simply a dull but cruel pastime, and

like Othello’s in his fancied degradation, Plumtree’s “occupation would

be gone.”

All unconscious of my forebodings, their confiding object pulled a

square and heavily-sealed note from what I believe Mr. Poole terms the

“opossum pocket” of his shooting-jacket, and handed it to me with the

mock dignity of an ambassador presenting his credentials, winking

demurely on Miss Lushington the while.

“Can you read?” inquired the facetious envoy. “If so, there’s a bit of

blotting from the old folks at home. I told the governor that as you

weren’t fit to do much ‘scraping,’ I’d best bring it over, and take back

the answer by word of mouth. But you’ll come, won’t you? It’s a crafty

crib enough, The Ashes, and you’ll get your health there as well as here

for a day or so. I can’t say much for the biting, but there’s some

lining with a green seal to it, that will set your collar-bone for you,

make your hair curl tight up to the roots, and bring you down to-morrow

morning, as fresh as a bull-calf, and as hearty as a buck.”

There was no resisting such inducements as these, and indeed the letter

of Mr. Plumtree senior, though extremely pompous and ceremonious, was

hospitable, considerate, and kind. Though almost a stranger, he hoped

that I would excuse our short acquaintance, and dine with him at The

Ashes, adding, that as I ought not to expose myself to cold from the

night-air, he trusted that I would take a bed.

Although such a creature of habit that I would far rather have remained

in solitary state at the Haycock, I felt it would have been more than

churlish to refuse so hospitable an invitation, the only drawback to

which was the necessity I foresaw of driving over in “the trap” with

young Plumtree. I would have given a good deal to be permitted to order

a post-chaise and pair, and go over comfortably, with all the windows

up; but it is of no use to struggle with destiny; I saw what was before

me, and resolved to confront my fate like a man.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER IX

IN THE TRAP

“YOU’LL go with _me_, Softly, of course!” observed young Plumtree,

otherwise “Jovial Jem,” just as I expected. “There’s a Waterborough ’bus

runs right by our lodge-gate: your servant can come over with your

traps. Get a greatcoat on, there’s a good fellow, and we’ll start

immediately, if not before. A short drain of brandy neat, Miss

Lushington, if _you_ please. Look alive, you adorable angel, ministering

spirit, I may say. Time’s short, you know, roads woolly, and whipcord

scarce.”

“But are you sure you can take me?” I interposed, with expostulatory

eagerness. “Yours is a smallish carriage, if that was it I saw just now

in the yard” (how devoutedly I wished it was not!). “I fear I shall

inconvenience you; and, by the by, where is your servant to sit?” I

added, grasping vaguely at the last chance of a reprieve.

“Servant?” said the Jovial, drinking off his brandy at a gulp, “didn’t

bring one; don’t want a ‘shoot’ when I’m driving Crafty Kate. There’s

only one gate to open if we go the short way, and it opens _from_ us; so

I catch it, you know, on the shaft, and there’s no trouble in getting

out. Once the apron’s buttoned, never move till the end of the stage,

that’s my principle. Wet t’other eye? Thank you, Miss Lushington. Here’s

your health! Now, young man, tell the ostler to get the trap round to

the front-door; when I drive a gemman, I likes to take him up _like_ a

gemman.”

“But if the harness wants altering, or anything?” I urged feebly. “In my

crippled state, you know, I can’t get out. Don’t you think, now?—though,

of course, I should like the drive very much—don’t you really think it

would be better if I were to find my own way over, and you might take a

man from here to open the gates and that, who could come back in my

return chaise?”

“Not a bit of it!” replied the Jovial. “What’s the use of that? I know

the mare, and the mare knows me. _You_ won’t have to get out, never

fear. Come, though you’ve got a queer wing, there’s nothing amiss with

your pipes. Look here, there’s a yard of tin in that basket. You’ll play

all the way, and I’ll drive. Take her in a hole shorter, Ben. Here’s a

game! hooray!”

By this time “the Jovial’s” high conveyance—well might he called it a

trap—was at the door; Crafty Kate wincing, and lifting and swishing her

tail, as if nothing would give her greater pleasure than to knock the

whole thing, red wheels, lamps, paint, varnish, and lacquering, all to

pieces forthwith. I could not get out of it now, do what I would.

Recalling in my own mind every frightful accident I ever remembered to

have read, or heard of, that had occurred on wheels, and no whit

reassured by an appalling fact I had always considered established, viz.

that more long coachmen had been killed out of gigs, than had died any

other death, I went upstairs to give my servant directions as to the

clothes he should pack up, to wrap myself in a warm greatcoat, and to

put another cigar in my mouth, that haply might conceal the involuntary

trepidation of my nerves.

How comfortable my sitting-room looked as I left it! It was a cold raw

day, and the fire burnt up so cheerily; the easy-chair spread its arms

invitingly to receive me in its familiar embrace; there was the

newspaper carefully unfolded and spread out on the table, with the last

_Quarterly_ uncut, by its side. An amusing novel, of which I had got

halfway into the second volume, seemed to entreat me not to leave it

unfinished, and two or three letters requiring early answers were lying

with their seals opened in mute appeal. All this comfort I was about to

exchange for a muddy drive, a drizzling rain, the conversation of a man

I did not care about, and worse still, the probable vagaries of Crafty

Kate. I confess I have no great confidence in a thorough-bred mare, that

swishes her tail a good deal in harness. I thought Miss Lushington,

even, looked somewhat pitifully on me, as one about to venture in a

dangerous undertaking unawares. Nevertheless I mounted the trap, not

without difficulty, was carefully buttoned in by the one-eyed ostler,

and felt myself launched forth on stormy seas, with Jovial Jem for a

pilot.

On leaving the door it became painfully apparent that Crafty Kate was in

a condition of excitement, not to say insubordination, which boded

untoward results. Passing between the lines of dilapidated houses that

constitute the little village of Soakington, she piaffed and curvetted,

and tucked her head in, and hoisted her great angular quarters, in a

manner calculated to excite the admiration of all beholders—limited in

the present instance to a lame duck, and two boys playing truant from

school; but when we emerged on the smooth expanse of the Waterborough

road, stimulated by the love of approbation, or urged by a morbid

anxiety to get home, the mare took the bit in her teeth, and very nearly

made a bolt of it. I confess I clung to the rail that ran round the

seat, thankful even for that frail support, and notwithstanding the

slight hold it afforded me, narrowly escaped being dashed out, as we

turned with fearful rapidity, and entirely on one wheel, like a skater

doing the outside edge, up a lane diverging at right angles from the

thoroughfare along which we had been bowling at such a pace.

It was evident, however, by Crafty Kate’s demeanour, that this was not

the way home. She stopped dead short, stuck her forelegs out, and began

nodding her head in that ominous manner, which denotes a determination

to fight to the last. “Sit tight, Softly!” exclaimed the Jovial, with a

fiendish laugh, as though this had been part of a programme devised for

my special entertainment. “Sit tight! whilst I give my lady a taste of

the silk!” and without further parley he pulled the whip from its

bucket, and commenced a course of punishment on the mare’s sides, which

produced no further result than that of causing her to back faster and

faster towards the ditch; the tall red wheels hovered on its very brink,

when a bright idea flashed across the charioteer’s mind. “Give us a

blast of the tin, Softly,” said he, continuing, nevertheless, a vigorous

application of the whipcord, “and let us see if _your_ blasting is not

more musical than _mine_!”

I am no performer, I candidly admit, on a trumpet of any description;

but a desperate crisis demands a desperate remedy, and seizing the long

coach-horn I performed such a _solo_ upon it as has probably never been

heard before, or since. “The Jovial” left off flagellating, and laughed

till he cried. The mare laid her ears down into her poll, tucked her

tail close to her quarters, and went off at score. Completely blown by

my exertions, we had gone nearly a mile ere I returned the horn to its

case, and found breath to speak.

“But is this the shortest way to The Ashes?” said I, striving by the aid

of a “Vesuvian” to relight my cigar, which had gone out in the panic. “I

thought we kept straight along the high-road to the turnpike, and then

took the first turning to the——”

“O, bother The Ashes;” returned my mercurial companion. “We shall get

there quite soon enough. Besides, the governor never shows till

feeding-time; busy about the farm you know, mud-larking as I call it.

No! no! if you want to see some fun, I’ll show you a game. We’ll just

trot down to Joe Lambswool’s, at the World’s End, about two miles

further on, and if you _do_ care for sport, I can promise you a real

treat. He’s going to pull down the old barn to-day; hasn’t been touched,

I dare say, for two hundred years. Talk of rats! why, it’s swarming with

them, as big as pole-cats pretty nigh, and twice as savage. He’s got a

_dawg_ as I want to see tried, quite a little ’un, what you would call a

toy-_dawg_, you know; but they tell me he’ll tackle to anything alive,

and knows how to kill a cat. If I like him I’ll buy him; and we’ll give

old Brimstone a treat into the bargain,” added my amiable entertainer,

looking back at the bull-terrier, who was toiling behind us, bespattered

with mud, his tail lowered, his tongue out, and a villanous expression

of sullenness and ferocity stamped on his round massive head.

“I should like it excessively,” I replied, with an inward shudder,

belying, most uncomfortably, my unqualified expressions of delight, and

the Jovial, turning on me a look of astonished approval, made a queer

noise through his teeth, that started Crafty Kate incontinently into a

canter.

“Well! I’m in for it now!” was my mental soliloquy, as we went whirling

past the dripping trees and hedges with increasing rapidity. “How could

I ever be induced to blunder into such a trap as this? A wet day; a

dangerous drive; a pot-house gathering, and an afternoon spent in a

tumble-down barn, full of draughts I make no doubt, and by no means

water-tight; watching for rats, animals of which I have the greatest

horror, and circumventing the same by means of ferrets—creatures if

possible more disgusting to me than their prey—all because I hadn’t

nerve to say ‘No.’ And not a chance now of seeing Miss Merlin when she

comes home from hunting! Softly! this is a day’s penance. You must get

through it as you best can!”

A rescue, however, when I least expected it, was proposed for me by a

kind fortune, to snatch me from the _ratting_ part of my discomforts.

The lane down which we were bowling, though of considerable length, was

not that proverbial one in which there is no turning. On reaching an

angle by a sign-post, the Jovial pulled up, with great animation

displayed on his broad white face.

“I can hear ’em running in Tangler’s Copse, as plain as can be,” said

he, putting up his hand in the air, and cocking his head on one side to

listen. Tangler’s Copse, be it observed, was a straggling woodland in

the Castle-Cropper country, from which it was always difficult, and

generally impossible, to force a fox into the open. “Listen, Softly!” he

continued, with increasing excitement; “I’m blessed if that isn’t the

horn! See, Kate hears it too.”

I am not gifted with extraordinary fineness of ear, particularly when

well wrapped up on a rainy day; so I turned down the collar of my

greatcoat, and took off my shawl-handkerchief to listen. There was no

doubt we were in the vicinity of hounds; I could hear them distinctly,

running as it seemed with a good scent, and cheered by occasional blasts

on the horn.

The drizzling rain struck cold on my bare cheek. Kate’s head was up, her

ears erect, her nostrils dilated, and she trembled in every limb.

“Bother the rats for to-day!” exclaimed my mercurial charioteer. “What

say you, Softly? Let’s go hunting instead. The mare can jump like fun,

and the trap can go anywhere. Open the gate, there’s a good chap! In the

next field but one there’s a bridle-road takes us right away to

Tangler’s Copse.”

I descended from the tall conveyance to do his bidding, dirtying my

gloves, wetting my feet, and daubing my coat with mud in the process;

but there is a condition of the human mind, at which it ceases to be a

free agent, and I had arrived at that negative state, when we quitted

the turnpike-road. Once more climbing with difficulty to my seat, I

found myself bumping over the ridge-and-furrow of a large grass-field,

and, straining my eyes to find an egress, became aware that it was the

Jovial’s intention to drive through a sort of gap in the fence, where

the ditch had been partially filled up. It was now time to protest,

which I did loudly and energetically; but my objections were too late.

“Sit tight, Softly! _Gently_, Kate!” exclaimed Plumtree in a breath; and

with a bump, a jerk, and a most astounding bang against the

splash-board, we were safe over, and careering along the next field.

I was glad to see a gate led out of this enclosure. I would have climbed

up and down those red wheels, fifty times, rather than repeat the

process we had just now accomplished.

Crafty Kate, shamelessly belying the first half of her name, seemed to

enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, swinging along at a very

respectable pace, with her ears cocked, her head and tail both up, and

an obvious determination to join the chase with as little delay as

possible. The vehicle sprang and jerked, and swung from side to side;

the wheels bespattered us from head to foot with mud: the splash-board

alone prevented us from shooting out, over the mare’s back. No one who

has ever tried it will wish to repeat the uncomfortable diversion of

galloping in a gig.

Fortunately the rain began to cease, the clouds cleared away, and a

burst of winter sunshine enabled us to see as far as the flatness of the

country would allow.

The Jovial pulled up short, not without considerable difficulty.

“They’re away, by all that’s lucky,” exclaimed he, shifting his reins

into his whip-hand, that he might give me a congratulatory slap on the

back, which knocked all the breath out of my body. “Never knew a fox to

leave Tangler’s Copse before, and bearing right down upon us too, or I’m

a Scotchman! There’s the fox, by jingo! Hold your tongue, Softly!”

The injunction was quite unnecessary, for I am not one of the halloaing

tribe. Moreover, my handkerchief was pulled up to my nose, and I did not

myself see the cause of my companion’s excitement. He was right,

however; presently two or three couple of hounds straggled into the

field adjoining that in which we were stationed, ran to and fro along

the hedge-side, put their noses down, threw their tongues, and followed

by the whole pack, streamed across the pasture on the line of their

prey.

It was great fun, and a new sensation, to watch the progress of the

field, as one sat an unoccupied spectator, perched in a thing like a

tea-tray on a pair of tall red wheels. I can quite understand the

pleasure an old gentleman has, who rides quietly out on his cob, to see

them “find and go away.”

A couple of simultaneous _crashes_ in the fence announced the arrival in

the same field with the hounds of the Earl himself, and a hard-riding

gentleman with moustaches, a visitor at the castle. Fifty yards or so to

their right again, and somewhat nearer the pack, a beautiful grey horse,

having been quietly trotted up the hard pathway that led to it, landed

in artistic form over a hog-backed stile with a foot-board, ridden by an

elegant figure in a lady’s habit, of whom it was impossible at that

distance to recognise the face. Happening, however, to glance at my

companion’s countenance (who caught his breath by the way, during this

performance), and observing it to become a deep crimson, my surmises

that the daring Amazon was none other than Miss Merlin were to a certain

extent corroborated.

Then came a bay, and a brown, and a chestnut, the latter falling at his

fence, but inflicting no damage on his rider, who never let go the

bridle, but was up and at it again without delay. These were followed by

another bay, who refused to jump, and a dark-coated gentleman on a roan,

whose heart failed him at the last stride, and who faded ignominiously

away from that moment. The huntsman and first whip must have come a

different line altogether, for we saw their velvet caps bobbing up and

down in the distance, but could not otherwise have identified them.

The Jovial, however, was now waxing visibly impatient. “Dash it!” said

he, “we may as well see the finish. I’m game, Softly, if you are. Come

along, Kate!” And without waiting for the consent, which as a partner in

the firm I think I was entitled to withhold, he laid the rein on the

mare’s back, and we were once more jolting and bumping across the fields

in search of some dubious and unfrequented bridle-road.

My friend was a good pilot. I must do him the justice to admit that

quality. He seemed to know every gate and lane in the country, also to

possess an intuitive knowledge of the run of a fox, with a staunch

predilection for keeping down wind. I did not despair of coming up with

the chase once more, and truth to tell I was not without hopes that

to-day my curiosity might be satisfied with a view of Miss Merlin.

“The Jovial,” on the other hand, had become preoccupied and restless. No

longer dispensing his quaint sallies and florid parables in my ear, he

gave his whole attention to Crafty Kate, an arrangement to which I

should have been the last person on earth to object; and although he

drove that game and resolute animal with merciless rapidity, it was in a

style considerably less random than before. Perhaps the influence of the

brandy had died out; perhaps he felt the depression that always succeeds

the excitement of seeing hounds, when it has evaporated. Perhaps he was

thinking of his dinner, perhaps of the rat-catching he had missed,

perhaps of Miss Merlin. We drove on for at least two miles without

speaking.

In justice to my friend’s humanity, I am bound to observe that we had

long ago taken pity on Brimstone, and hoisted him into the cart, where

he lay coiled up under my legs, sniffing them ominously from time to

time, as if only deterred by considerations of the merest politeness

from taking a bite out of them at the most sensitive place. I dreaded

lest a jolt severer than common should be construed by this amiable

animal into a personal insult to himself.

To any one who has ever tried the delusive pastime of following hounds

at a distance, with any expectation of coming up with them, I may leave

the task of imagining our repeated disappointments and the labour, like

that of Sisyphus, undergone by Crafty Kate. The persevering sportsman

will have no difficulty in understanding how we drove from field-road to

cross-road, and from cross-road to highway; how the little indistinct

figures and black hats, dotting and bobbing behind the hedges, were now

on our right, now on our left, anon almost within hail, and then

hopelessly and provokingly ahead; how we saw the hounds themselves

entering Cropley Pastures, and, thinking to nick in upon them at

Whitethorns, found they had taken an unexpected turn to Swillingford

mill; in short, how surely, as must always be the case in a good run,

the further we went, the farther we were left behind, till our hopes,

being suddenly raised by a butcher in a tax-cart, who had met them not

half-a-mile from where we then were, and thought they must have “got him

in a drain,” to be as suddenly dashed into ruins again by a farmer’s lad

at the spot indicated, who vowed they had been gone twenty minutes, and

“were running like fire,” we gave it up in despair, and turned Crafty

Kate’s head, soberly and sadly, on her homeward way. A mouthful of gruel

at a road-side public-house for the mare, and a small measure of hot

ale, with a glass of gin, a spoonful of brown sugar, and a dash of spice

in it, called by the different titles of “lambs’ wool,” “dog’s nose,”

and “purl,” but of superlative merit after a three hours’ drive in the

wet, restored us all, except Brimstone, to something of our earlier

energy. I was glad, I confess, to have got through the drive without an

accident, and looked forward to a warm house and a comfortable

dressing-room, where my servant, I hoped, had already arrived with my

things, more cheerfully than I should have conceived possible in the

morning, when I anticipated my enforced visit to The Ashes with

considerable distaste. The Jovial, too, having apparently drowned his

unpleasant reflections, whatever they might be, in the hot mixture, came

out once more in his normal character, accepting one of my cigars with

facetious condescension, and sticking it in the extreme corner of his

mouth, from which he never once removed it till he had smoked it down to

the very stump.

“Mare’s about told out, Softly,” said he, as we drove somewhat soberly

through the very gate he had spoken of in the morning, opening it by the

dangerous process of running the shaft against its bars, and fending it

off from the wheel with his left hand. “Hard day for the Crafty: those

field-roads are so blessed deep. Never mind; another half-mile will see

us. I don’t think you know my sisters: remarkable young women, and

accomplished, ’specially Jane. I am prepared now to back Jane against

any other girl in England, weight for age of course, to do five

things—work cross stitch, whistle jigs, do the outside edge backwards,

speak German, and make a sparrow pudding. My money is ready at The

Ashes, Waterborough, this identical house of call we’re coming to, that

it’s too dark for you to see. Catch hold, while I jump out and ring the

bell.”

The flood of warm light that shone out upon us from the hall was indeed

a pleasant contrast to the dark cold afternoon, which had already

changed again for the worse. As I divested myself of my wraps, with the

assistance of a staid elderly servant, young Plumtree welcomed me quite

courteously to his father’s house, diverging, however, immediately

afterwards, into the kind of jesting slang which was most familiar to

him.

“You’re wet,” he observed, laying his hand on my coat, through which the

rain had indeed penetrated. “Perhaps you’d like to go and dress at once.

Indeed, we dine in less than an hour. Shall I show you your room? Will

you have anything before dinner?—glass of sherry?—biscuit?—crust of

bread and a pickle? No? then step this way, if you please. Here’s your

room; things laid out—hot water laid on. There’s the bell; _you_ ring

for what you _want_, and the servants will bring you what they _have_!”

Behold me, then, like a man in a dream, dressing comfortably for dinner,

in a strange house, of which I did not know the proprietor, nor, indeed,

one of the inmates, except the _harum-scarum_ young gentleman who had

introduced me. In justice to myself, I made an elaborate toilet—white

tie, black suit, thin boots—everything rigorously correct. There is no

costume, in my opinion, which so marks the distinction of classes, as

the plain dinner-dress of an English gentleman; and, indeed, I once

heard that very invidious title defined as “a man who had got evening

clothes.” Passing down to the drawing-room—an apartment I had no

difficulty in finding, for the door was open, and a lamp shone

brilliantly from it into the hall—I had leisure to observe the articles

of furniture in the passages, and to remark on the idiosyncrasy which

prompts all country gentlemen alike to ornament the insides of their

houses with stuffed animals in glass cases. The Ashes was rich in

specimens of this description. All kinds of birds flourished their beaks

at the visitors on the stairs. A gigantic pike, like a miniature shark,

grinned at him over the chimney-piece, and a hideous otter snarled at

him from under the umbrella-stand in the hall. A portrait, which I

concluded to be that of Mr. Plumtree senior, also adorned this crowded

vestibule. I studied it by the light of my chamber-candlestick, not

entirely, I fear, without spilling some wax on the floor during the

process, in pardonable curiosity as to the exterior of the gentleman

with whom I was about to dine. The picture was in all probability more

valuable from its resemblance to the original, than from any intrinsic

merit of its own as a work of art. It represented a florid personage, in

the prime of life, attired in a bright-blue coat, and yellow waistcoat,

on both which articles of apparel the artist had bestowed a liberal

amount of colour, sitting by a pillar of porphyry, under a crimson

curtain, “with a distant view of the changing sea.” His face, devoid of

any outward expression, denoted that rapt state of thought peculiar, I

am informed, to the highest order of intellects, and he seemed equally

unmoved by the magnificence of the scenery, the gorgeousness of the

curtain which overhung him, or the splendour of a heavy watch-chain and

seals that rested massively against his nankeen stomach. On a table at

his elbow stood a large book and a snuff-box, whilst his hand rested

carelessly on the head of a black retriever dog. “If old Plumtree is

like that,” was my mental observation, “he must present as great a

contrast to the Jovial as was ever afforded in the inconvenient

relationship of father and son.” I did not speak aloud, fortunately; for

this conclusion brought me into the drawing-room, which, having dressed

early, I expected I should have had to myself: it was not so, however.

On entering that apartment—a pretty, well-furnished, long, low room,

with some excellent prints and a grand pianoforte—I was somewhat

discomfited to find it already occupied by two young ladies, dressed, as

far as my confusion permitted me to observe, precisely alike, sitting in

precisely the same attitude, and engaged over similar pieces of

crochet-work. I bowed very awkwardly, and walked up to the fire, with

the startling intelligence that it was “a cold evening,” a proposition

neither of the ladies seemed in a position to confute. This masterly

manœuvre, however, gave me an opportunity of studying both their faces,

and I am bound to admit that the one predominating idea present to my

mind, during a perusal of their features, was, “How shall I ever know

one from the other, when their brother comes down, and formally

introduces us?” Each of them was a rather tall, rather large young lady,

with hands and feet to correspond. Each of them had a certain regularity

of features, totally devoid of any expression whatsoever, that might

have laid claim to good looks, had it not been nullified by the absence

of colouring and want of tone in their rather large, rather flat faces.

If either of them had unfortunately taken to drinking, she would have

been a bad likeness of her brother the Jovial. That I longed ardently

for the conclusion of that gentleman’s toilet is no matter of surprise,

the conversation between the Misses Plumtree and myself being driven, so

to speak, at a funereal rate, and in the longest possible stages. I

gathered, however, from a certain decision of tone in their few and

disjointed remarks, that there was no mother Plumtree, and that the

vestals now before me were the presiding goddesses of the place.

At length, to my great relief, I heard a door open on the staircase, and

a manly step approaching, which I feared, even while I listened, was too

ponderous for that of my friend. The young ladies made a rustling kind

of movement, as if to bespeak my attention. A deep voice in the hall was

heard to say, “Dinner directly!” and the portly form of mine host walked

into the drawing-room, with outstretched hand, and that welcome on his

lips with which an Englishman always receives a guest into his castle,

whether that metaphorical building be really a ducal residence, a

squire’s hall, or a day-labourer’s cottage.

Old Mr. Plumtree was a great improvement on his son, as well as his

picture. Although of the plainest and most unsophisticated of squires,

he was obviously a high-bred gentleman; and his old-fashioned attire—for

he had not discarded the blue coat, yellow waistcoat, and white

stockings of his younger days—was perfectly in keeping with his fresh

old face, round and rosy as a winter-apple: his fine bald head and

stately figure, deep of chest, stout of limb, and somewhat protuberant

of stomach.

“I am glad James found ye at home, Mr. Softly,” said he, “and doubly

glad he persuaded ye to come over and eat your mutton with us here. My

daughters, Mr. Softly—Rebecca and Jane.” Both ladies again got up, and

we bowed and curtsied once more to one another; whilst I still remained

as much in ignorance as ever as to _which_ was Rebecca and _which_ was

Jane. “You got here before six,” continued my host, evidently bent on

making me feel myself at home. “Our roads are not the best travelling in

the dark, but I conclude you don’t make much account of roads. Broke

your collar-bone at a fence? and a large one too, I’ll be bound. I was a

sportsman myself, Mr. Softly. I recollect in the year——”

“Dinner is on the table, sir!” announced the respectable-looking

servant, interrupting his master’s reminiscences at this juncture; and

with a nod to me to take Miss Plumtree, which I acknowledged by diving

at the nearest lady, whom I afterwards found out to be the younger

sister, we filed off in great state for the dining-room, the Jovial

joining the procession in the hall, and whispering in my ear, as he

passed my chair, “Don’t be afraid of the Madeira, it’s been twice round

the Cape; and if he talks about breeding hounds, mind you say ‘_Yes_’ to

the governor!”

With the _carte du pays_ thus spread before me, I unfolded my napkin,

and went at an excellent clear soup with the utmost confidence.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER X

THE OLD SQUIRE

THE dinner passed off far more pleasantly than I should have imagined

possible. Drawn out by their brother, and gradually losing their awe of

myself as a stranger, both Rebecca and Jane found something to say, and

voices wherewith to say it. Well-brought-up girls in our English society

are all shy (though not half so reserved as foreign young ladies of the

same age), or at all events, are taught that it is right to appear so;

but we must never forget that it is as natural for a woman to talk as

for a duck to swim. Let them alone a little: don’t hurry them at first.

If your host gives you good champagne, as in these anti-tariff days he

is very likely to do, press them to have a glass. Turn the conversation

upon some individual, the more notorious the better, of their own sex;

but be careful to state that you cannot see what there is to admire in

her yourself, and then begin resignedly at your cutlet. Take my word for

it, the talking will be done for you, till gloves and handkerchiefs have

to be recovered, and the ladies spread their pinions and sail away to

the drawing-room.

The Jovial was also a host in himself. The presence of his sisters toned

down his slang a trifle, while it enhanced his liveliness. He gave a

vivid and laughable description of our day’s hunting, performed in the

gig, but rather hesitated and showed some little confusion when

describing our first view of the hounds.

“Who was with them?” asked his father; the old man’s eye kindling, as he

filled a glass of ruby port, and offered me my choice between that and a

tempting-looking claret decanter. “Who was going well? The Earl, I’ll

pound it! Castle-Cropper will be with ’em, let it be ever so good for

pace; and Will Hawke, I suppose; and who else?”

“The person that seemed to me to be going best,” I here interposed,

filling my glass, “was a lady on a grey horse; a Miss Merlin, I believe,

who is staying at the inn at Soakington. A most extraordinary

horsewoman!”

The Jovial blushed, though he hid his confusion in a great gulp of

Madeira. Rebecca and Jane interchanged looks of considerable meaning,

and the former (I think) took up the running.

“How very unfeminine!” said she, turning round to me. “Don’t you think

so, Mr. Softly? I’m sure gentlemen must wish ladies anywhere else, when

they come out hunting. I think it oughtn’t to be allowed; and this Miss

Merlin, you know, rides just like a man.”

“Don’t believe her!” exclaimed the Jovial, in his turn. “I’ve seen her

out with our hounds many a time, but never on anything but a

side-saddle, in my life.”

Rebecca blushed in her turn. “How _can_ you, James?” said she. “Of

course I didn’t mean _that_. But you’re so infatuated about Miss Merlin,

you think she can’t do wrong. And what there is to admire in her, I

can’t see, for my part.”

“Why, she _does_ ride beautifully, you know,” put in Jane,

apologetically; at least, I suppose it was Jane, as she seemed more

tolerant of manly exercises than her sister, and was altogether of a

livelier and more attractive style. I couldn’t help thinking, even then,

I would give something to see her doing the outside edge backwards.

“Well, but that’s a _man’s_ accomplishment,” replied her sister. “I was

speaking more of her good looks. Come, Mr. Softly; give us your honest

opinion. _Do_ you think her so very wonderfully beautiful?”

This was obviously a back-hander at James, who, having by this time

tackled well to the Madeira, bore it with the utmost philosophy.

I was obliged to confess that, although living in the same hotel, I had

never seen her, not thinking it necessary to add my opinion of Justine,

nor to dwell on the circumstances under which I had made that sweet

little woman’s acquaintance.

“Never seen her!” repeated both ladies in tones of the utmost surprise;

but while Rebecca’s emphasis denoted simple astonishment, I was

concerned to detect in that of Jane a covert reproach and contempt. What

must a young lady of her gifts and acquirements have thought of so

recreant a knight as myself? They are all alike, you see—these ladies;

repudiating very judiciously, as an established principle, too great

diffidence in our sex, and readier far to forgive us when erring in the

opposite extreme. The Bissextile, or Leap-year, does not come often

enough to allow their taking the initiative as a regular thing; so a

backward swain is like a jibbing horse—the very worst description of

animal you can drive, either for single or double harness, light or

heavy draught.

“And what do you think of our hounds, Mr. Softly?” said old Plumtree,

now putting in a word, as he sent the bottles round a second time; a

signal for the young ladies to depart, and for me to open the door to

let them out—a manœuvre I accomplished with the best grace I could

muster, and an uncomfortable conviction that they might, and probably

_would_ talk me over, not without critical disapproval, immediately they

were settled in the drawing-room.

As we took our seats round the fire, which sparkled pleasantly amongst

the glasses and decanters on the little round table, my host repeated

his question, adding, whilst his son almost imperceptibly elevated his

eyebrows, “Don’t you think now, _as_ a sportsman, that we’re all

inclined to breed hounds a little too fast?”

This was obviously old Plumtree’s crotchet, and I resigned myself to my

fate.

“You must get pretty quick after a fox _some_ part of the day, if you’ve

a mind to kill him,” I replied; because I had heard a huntsman once say

something of the same kind. And Jem likewise put in his oar with the

remark, that “slow hounds, in these days, would never get from under the

horses’ feet”—an observation received by his father with that silent

contempt which a man would consider extremely rude to a stranger, but

which, nevertheless, he does not scruple to betray towards those who

have the advantage of belonging to his own family.

“Oh! I grant you that,” said the old gentleman. “A fox is a speedy

animal himself, and it stands to reason that if you are to catch him,

you must some time or another go faster than he does. But haste is not

always speed. A man may be in a devil of a hurry, and yet slip two paces

backwards for every one he advances. The same process that kills a hare

will kill a fox. The keeping constantly _at_ him, not the bustling him

along best pace for ten or fifteen minutes. Now, your hounds of the

present day are always flashing over the scent into the next field.

Either you waste a deal of valuable time by having to try back; or if

your huntsman is as wild as his hounds, he gallops forward blowing his

horn, makes a wild cast, and loses him altogether. Either way you

destroy your own object, which I take to be the enjoyment of _riding_ in

a gallop with hounds that are running with their noses down, and the

enjoyment of _hunting_ by seeing the sagacity of a close-working pack,

persevering through difficulties, and rewarded with a kill.

“I’m an old fogey, I grant you, Mr. Softly. If I do ever go out to look

at the hounds, it’s on a pony; and I can no more see, the way ‘Jem’

there goes, than I can fly; but let me tell you, I could have beat his

head off, and given him two stone of weight into the bargain, when I was

his age. It’s not that I want hounds to stay behind with _me_, that

makes me say they’re bred too fast nowadays: far from it. I like you

young fellows to enjoy yourselves, and have brushing gallops, and comb

your whiskers well out in the bullfinches, and sew up your horses and

come home, and drink ‘fox-hunting.’ Ring the bell, Jem; we’ll have

another bottle of that claret. I think I know what riding is, if I

haven’t forgotten it. You see that dark-brown horse over the fire-place?

That’s a good likeness, Mr. Softly; and that was the best horse I ever

had in my life.”

Raising my eyes in obedience to my host’s behests, they rested on a

picture enclosed in a most gorgeous frame, representing a brown horse

with rather a long back and wonderfully short legs; his tail reduced to

the smallest dimensions, and his ears, so to speak, at full cock. This

animal, in the highest possible condition, and with every muscle

standing out from its body to a rigid degree of tension, was depicted in

the centre of a flowery mead, over-shadowed by large trees in their

densest summer foliage, gazing fixedly at a red-brick mansion, on the

further side of a sheet of water which had by no means found its own

level, but was represented in the abnormal condition of covering the

side of a slope. I gazed with admiration not unmixed with astonishment.

Delighted with the obvious impression, my host went on:—

“I don’t think I ever had one that could go on like ‘Supple-Jack.’ I

called him Supple-Jack, Mr. Softly, on account of his breed. He was by

Bamboo, that horse,—was out of a mare they called Twisting Jane; and no

pace was too good, no day too long for him. We didn’t think so much of

jumping in my day as they do now; at least, we didn’t _talk_ about it so

large; but you might lay the rein on Supple-Jack’s neck, and trot him up

to any gate in this country, and he’d take you safely over it. Why, Jem

there will tell you, when he was a boy, he’s seen the old horse, when he

was past twenty, jump the gate backwards and forwards, into the paddock

by the little orchard, only to come and be fed. Jump, indeed! they

couldn’t go far without knowing how to jump, in _my_ day.

“Well, sir, you talk of runs; why, I rode that horse the famous Topley

day, with these very hounds, when we found in Topley Banks, immediately

after the long frost, and killed our fox on the lawn at Mount Pleasant,

eight miles as the crow flies, in thirty-four minutes. Talk of pace,

sir! you can’t beat that in these flying days. I never got a pull at my

horse from first to last; and, barring a bit of a scramble at the

Sludge, where the banks were rotten from the sudden thaw, he never put a

foot wrong. Zounds, sir! I don’t believe he ever changed his leg. The

late Earl and myself got away together from the Banks, close to the

hounds. He was a good man across country, but he couldn’t ride like his

son. There were a dozen more close behind us, but they never got near

enough to speak; and the Earl and I went sailing on, side by side, over

the Sloppington Lordship, and all along by Soakington Pastures, not far

from where you’re staying now, Mr. Softly, till we got within sight of

Tangler’s Copse, where you were to-day. That and the prospect of a nasty

overgrown bullfinch, with only one place in it, made up uncommon strong,

tempted the Earl a little out of his line, and I never saw _him_ again.

Supple-Jack and I had it all to ourselves after that, and he carried me

over the ha-ha, on to the lawn at Mount Pleasant, just as the hounds

rolled their fox over, under the drawing-room window. There was a large

party staying in the house (your poor mother was one of them, Jem), and

they all thought the frost was not sufficiently out of the ground to

hunt, and so had remained at home.

“‘Where do you hail from?’ said old Squire Gayman, the proprietor, who

had served under Nelson.

“‘From Topley Banks!’ I answered, taking the fox from the hounds, and

putting him across the branch of a tree in the shrubbery, whilst I kept

a sharp look-out for the Earl and the huntsman, and the whips and the

rest of the field.

“‘Why, it’s scarcely gone eleven?’ said the Squire, looking at his

watch; ‘you haven’t wasted much time this morning. When did they put the

hounds in?’

“‘At half-past ten to a minute,’ I replied, ‘and we found and came away

directly. But I haven’t kept much of a dead reckoning since, and they

never checked nor hovered once to give me a chance of looking at my

watch.’

“‘And how did the ground ride?’ said two or three in a breath.

“‘Faith! you must ask Supple-Jack that question,’ was my answer; ‘for

indeed I hadn’t much time to inquire.’

“Now, the flashiest hounds alive couldn’t have done such a distance as

that, in a shorter time. And mark you, Mr. Softly, we had no tearing

along, heads up and sterns down, and hounds tailing for a mile because

they were all racing with each other. Far from it; they kept well

together, and threw their tongues merrily enough every now and then,

when they were ‘smeusing’ through a fence, or shaking themselves dry

after a plunge into the Sludge; but they kept always driving on. That

was what did it. No hesitation, no uncertainty, no getting their heads

up, and looking about for assistance. There was nobody to interfere with

them if they had wanted it, for the huntsman was a mile behind, and

dropping further and further astern every yard they went, and the Earl

had left his horn at home, and had little breath to spare besides.

“They ran their fox unassisted, and they killed him unassisted; but

then, you observe, these hounds had been trained for many a long season

to put down their noses and _hunt_; and it’s my opinion that they used

to run so fast for the very reason that they were what superficial

people call slow.”

The old gentleman here filled his glass, and took a good solemn gulp at

the dry port, before proceeding to the demonstration of the proposition

he had laid down. “Jovial Jem” and myself followed his example, the

latter giving me to understand, by the expression of his countenance,

that the governor was now mounted on his hobby, and had better not be

interrupted in the process of riding it to a standstill.

“It’s all nonsense about hounds carrying such a head,” said the Squire.

“It may look very fine to see them charging in line, like a squadron of

dragoons, or a flock of sheep when they’ve been turned by a dog; but

what’s the consequence? If they once get ten yards over the scent, it’s

all up. Jealous and flashy, each tries to get ahead of his comrade; and

the further they go the further they get from their fox, till they’re

forced to stop and stare about them like a pack of fools, and have

recourse to their huntsman after all. Then, what a pretty business they

make of it! To my thinking, it’s enough to disgust any man with hunting,

to see hounds cast, except of course under very peculiar

circumstances—such as ground stained with stock, sudden storm coming on

when a fox is sinking, or what not. It’s no pleasure to me, nor to you

either, I should suppose, to see them tearing along at the heels of

their huntsman’s horse, neither knowing nor caring apparently where they

go, so long as they can keep out of reach of the whipper-in, who is

flogging and shouting behind them. Then they don’t half run, after all,

even if they _should_ be so lucky as to get on the line of their fox

again. He is _mobbed_ to death, in all probability, rather than fairly

killed; and half the hounds don’t seem to care about eating him when

they’ve got him, instead of raging and tearing like so many wolves, as

they do when they know they’ve caught him for themselves. No, sir; give

me a good _line-hunting_ pack that stick close to their work, though

perhaps they _do_ make a little noise over it. If the leaders should

chance to over-run the scent a bit, why the others take it up, and there

is no perceptible delay. I have seen these Castle-Cropper hounds hunt

through sheep or oxen, just as steadily, though not quite so fast,

perhaps, as if they were running in a good scenting woodland. The

present Earl, though, is breeding them too fast. I always tell him so.

He’s breeding them too fast. And I think Will Hawke is of the same

opinion as myself.”

“You consider Will an excellent huntsman, do you not?” I hazarded as a

safe remark.

“He ought to be,” replied my host, filling himself another bumper of

port. “He was regularly bred for it, and entered to it, if ever man was.

When he was a little chap, not three feet high, he used to help his

father, who was feeder at the kennels. And I remember well the dowager

Countess telling me that he knew the name of every hound in the pack

long before he could answer one of the questions at her Sunday school.

He used to ride the horses, too, at exercise; and being a smart little

fellow, soon picked up all that was to be learned in the stable and

elsewhere. One day, when he was quite a lad, and the hounds met at the

kennel, as they often did, the first-whip was suddenly taken ill, and

unable to get upon his horse; the other man was forty miles away,

getting back some young hounds from walk. Will petitioned sorely to be

put on a steady nag, and allowed to take the invalid’s place; and, as he

was the only person who knew the hounds by name, he was permitted to do

so. We were all amused at the excitement and ambitious airs of the young

neophyte, who bustled about the rides of the covert, and “sang out” to

any transgressing hound in most approved form. Old Craner, who was

huntsman then, was perfectly delighted with the quickness and sagacity

of the young one. At last we crossed the Swimley with a cold scent, and

the hounds took to running on the opposite side of the river. Craner,

who was an old man, besides having an excellent situation, and not

caring to risk it, voted this all wrong, and expressed a wish to stop

them. Young Hawke had swum his horse halfway across before the words

were out of his senior’s mouth; and although he did not stop them, the

young rascal!—for the scent improved immensely, and they took to running

forthwith,—he elected himself into the post of huntsman for the

occasion, and killed his fox in masterly style after a good hunting run.

He was made second whip at the first opportunity, and has been in the

establishment ever since. It’s a good many years ago that I’m speaking

of, Mr. Softly; and the present Earl thinks he’s getting slow; but I’ll

back old Will to find his fox, and hunt his fox, and kill his fox, as

handsomely as any of the young ones still.”

“They all say he overdoes the letting-alone system,” observed the

Jovial, with a sly glance at me. “I’ve seen him lose more than one fox

on a bad-scenting day, because he wouldn’t go to a holloa, not even if

it was given by Tom Crow himself, whom he ought to be able to depend

upon.”

“And how many have you known him _kill_ by that same letting-alone

system, Master Flash?” exclaimed old Plumtree with the usual impatience

manifested by the senior when a son is so injudicious as to differ from

his father. “That’s the way with you young chaps, that think you know

all about it, and the whole time you haven’t even the wisdom to _know_

that you _don’t know_! Will Hawke’s hounds will stoop to a colder scent

than any hounds in England, simply _because_ he lets ’em alone; and they

take no more notice of a holloa than if it were a boy scaring crows. As

for Tom, the first-whip, he’s a conceited, ignorant chap, to my

thinking; always ‘clapping forward,’ as he calls it, and dodging about,

instead of minding his business. If I had my way with Tom, I’d sew his

mouth up, take his whip from him, and put him on a horse with three

legs. He’d be a precious sight more useful than he is now. At any rate,

he couldn’t do so much mischief. I never thought much of Tom; never

liked his voice—never liked his riding—never liked his boots and

breeches.”

“He’s a neat fellow enough, too,” I interfered, rather inclined to take

up the cudgels for my friend Tom, who had opened sundry gates for me,

and shown other signs of civility on my behalf, the first day I was out.

“Newmarket, sir; Newmarket!” said the old squire. “Bad school, bad

scholars. You can see it in the way he sits upon his horse; though he’s

got good hands, I’ll allow, and can gallop them fairly enough. The

present Earl picked him out of a trainer’s stable, to ride second-horse,

and he did it so _badly_, always larking over the fences in front,

instead of trotting on soberly behind, that he got him out of that at

any price; and, it’s my belief, only made him first-whip because he’d

nowhere else to put him, and didn’t like to turn him adrift, being a

sober respectable man enough.

“But he’s not my idea of a whipper-in, though I may be wrong. Everything

is so changed since _my_ day, and every man who wears a red coat now

seems to think he knows as much as King Solomon (with a withering glance

at Jem, who was buzzing the bottle of Madeira). This Tom Crow is always

going on to get a view, and putting his ugly face everywhere it ought

_not_ to be, under the idea that he is helping to kill the fox. That is

all he has a notion of—to _kill_ the fox. Now old Hawke, though he’s as

fond of blood as any huntsman alive, and far too much given to

_digging_, in my opinion, is all for catching him fairly, or else not

catching him at all.

“What’s the use of a view? If a man believes his hounds (and if he

don’t, he’d better hang ’em and retire himself into private life as a

market-gardener), he knows their game is before them, when he hears them

throw their tongues, just as certainly as if he’d viewed it fifty times.

And, ten to one, long before you see the fox, the fox sees you, and he’s

headed back again. I wish I’d a pound for every good run I’ve seen

spoilt in that way. No, no! I never want to clap eyes on him till I’ve

got him in my hand. I know all about him, then; and so do the hounds.

Will you have any more wine, Softly? or shall we join the ladies?”

Half a glass of rich brown sherry, than which nothing sobers a man more

rapidly, or settles his stomach more comfortably after an over-dose of

claret: a stretch of the legs, an arrangement of the neckcloth, and I

felt myself ready to confront Jane and Rebecca once more, perhaps with a

somewhat keener sense of their merits than I had entertained before

dinner. On entering the drawing-room, a dead silence prevailed between

the two; I concluded therefore that the topic which they seemed thus

suddenly to have dropped must have been one that would not bear

_ventilation_ (to use the Parliamentary slang of the present day) before

the gentlemen. Perhaps, indeed, it may have referred to the general

character of their visitor. I would have given something to know whether

they thought me most knave or fool.

A well-timed observation from their father put me at last _au fait_ as

to the identity of each lady; and when papa said, “Rebecca, won’t you

give us some music?” and the one next whom I did not chance to have

taken my seat replied, “Very well, papa. What will you have?” it became

evident to me that, having devoted myself before, and at dinner, to the

elder lady, it was now the younger sister’s turn to have her share of my

attentions.

Rebecca played skilfully, and accompanied herself, in a small voice,

with a tolerably correct attention to time; chiefly delighting, I

observed, in simple ballads of a touching and pathetic tendency, such as

“Annie,” “Willie, we have missed you,” and a very tearful song about a

person of the name of “Margaret.”

Pending these melodies, Jane, whom I now discovered to be a lady of a

certain force of character and an inquiring turn of mind, “put me

through my facings,” if I may use the expression, on a variety of

subjects, concerning most of which it has since occurred to me I must

have betrayed remarkable ignorance. When you have been out in the cold

all day, then enjoyed a good dinner, and a good deal of it, washed down

by copious libations of excellent wine, in a warm room, I believe, if

you are blessed with a healthy constitution, drowsiness is the

inevitable result. Then, suppose yourself placed in a very comfortable

arm-chair, opposite a blazing fire, with the hum of quiet voices and the

tones of a pianoforte falling soothingly on your ear, and you can

exactly imagine my position.

I am aware of having confessed truthfully enough to my fair inquisitor,

that I could neither play cricket, billiards, nor rackets; that I did

not care a great deal for shooting: should be likely to upset if I

ventured to drive four horses; and had never had a pair of skates on in

my life. I feel sure, at the same time, that I sustained the contempt

she could not but entertain for me with wonderful equanimity, and that I

further sank my intellectual powers to a level with my physical

incapacity, by an avowal of my inability to read a word of German. But

Jane was not to be thus choked off: she was one of those energetic young

ladies who, in their zeal to be doing, must needs have as many strings

to their bow as Phœbus could count upon his lyre. She collected

autographs, she discovered character from handwriting, she pestered all

her friends for their old postage-stamps; though what she did with them,

or what anybody does with them, even when the amount rises to a million,

is to me a profound mystery. Amongst other inquisitorial objects, she

possessed a wonderful book, in which the sufferer was requested to place

on record his opinions on sundry matters to which in all probability he

had never before given a thought;—such as his favourite authors in prose

and verse, the characters he most admired in modern and ancient history,

his pet preacher, and the names he should prefer to give his sons and

daughters, if he had any: all topics on which it is obvious none but a

man of profound forethought and reflection can be expected to have made

up his mind. I have a distinct recollection of skipping all these

questions till I came to the important one that required to know my

favourite food, and falling asleep then and there in an abortive attempt

to write the word “plum-pudding.”

Jem’s mellow voice, joining his sister’s in one of the Negro melodies,

awoke me in a state of great penitence and confusion. I was pleased to

observe, however, that I was not the only culprit, for old Plumtree,

with his head sunk into his voluminous white waistcoat, was accompanying

his children with a grand chorus of snores. But the vacant chair next my

own inflicted a tacit reproach that spoke whole pages of sarcasm; and I

felt it an inexpressible relief when, voting it too late for whist,

hand-candles were rung for, and the ladies betook themselves to bed,

followed, after a brief interval, by the three gentlemen.

The Jovial, of course, went to smoke. Nobody now-a-days seems able to go

to bed without that narcotic; but I declined his invitation to accompany

him, and laid my weary head as soon as I possibly could upon my pillow.

Determined to have nothing more to do with Crafty Kate, I had taken the

precaution of telling my servant to order a chaise to be ready for me at

an early hour the following morning; and when I discovered that it had

been freezing hard in the night, and the ground was one sheet of ice, I

felt I had no reason to repent of my precaution.

We assembled at breakfast at the early hour of nine; the Jovial coming

down in a shooting suit of marvellous fabrication and device, avowing

his intention of going out “to look for ducks,” a pastime in which I

cannot but think I was wise to decline joining him. The squire was off

to his farm the instant he had swallowed his breakfast, not, however,

without giving me a pressing and hospitable invitation to remain with

him another day. This I felt compelled to refuse. I longed to be back at

my quiet lodging once more; and, like all men who have not room for a

great many ideas at a time, felt that I had now got hold of one which

took entire possession of me. This was neither more nor less than a

morbid desire to see Miss Merlin.

I do not think either Rebecca or Jane regretted my departure. I am not a

ladies’ man—I know it; nor can I bring myself greatly to regret that

failure in my character. But they took leave of me with cordiality and

politeness, Jane even offering to lend me a book, of which we had been

talking, to read in the post-chaise.

As I drew up the windows and drove away from the door, I could not

sufficiently congratulate myself that I was not in that tall dog-cart,

at the mercy of “Jovial Jem” and “Crafty Kate.”

On my arrival at the Haycock, my first inquiry was for Miss Merlin. “She

was gone to Castle-Cropper,” the waiter said. “Maid and things followed

her yesterday. Gone to stay, sir? Yes, sir. Didn’t know for how long;

but the groom rather thought as she wouldn’t be back under a fortnight.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XI

THE SOAKINGTON FIELD-DAY

A FORTNIGHT’S frost tempted me to leave my comfortable quarters at the

Haycock, and the delights of Miss Lushington’s society, for the

metropolis. Somehow hunting men never _do_ keep away from London in the

frost, and I had an excellent excuse in wanting the best advice about my

arm. “The fracture had united very satisfactorily.” said the great

authority before whom I stripped, paying me at the same time an

agreeable compliment on my vigorous state of health, and the development

of my muscular system. By the time I had visited the different theatres,

and read all the back numbers of my favourite magazines, at “The Hat and

Umbrella,” I was as sound again as ever I had been in my life. Nor did I

forget, when once more frequenting my comfortable club, to cross-examine

Quizby at great length on the subject which was still uppermost in my

thoughts. His answers only made me the more anxious to see Miss Merlin:

and I never greeted a thaw with greater delight than that which set in,

just as I was beginning to get tired of London, and summoned me back to

Soakington once more. At the railway station it was obvious that the

hunting community, like those migratory birds which periodically leave

the frozen regions of the north for warmer climes, was on the wing.

Umbrellas and sticks, strapped together in bundles, discovered the white

crook of the hunting-whip between their handles; there was a great

demand at the bookstall for the _Sporting Magazine_ and the _Field_

newspaper; whilst half the hats hung up in the first-class carriage

betrayed, by a little ring of wire just under the brim, that it was

their natural destiny to be crushed in bullfinches, knocked off by

branches, possibly flattened and crumpled up by the projection of their

enthusiastic wearers head-foremost to the earth.

Arrived at Soakington, the first person I met was Miss Merlin’s dapper

groom. These domestics come out in a thaw, as we see flies begin to

swarm the first sunny day in spring. “The country,” he said, in answer

to my inquiries, “would ride perfectly well by to-morrow. Indeed, the

frost was pretty nigh out of the ground now. His lady? Oh she was quite

well, he believed; leastways he might say as he knowed she was, for he’d

been over for orders to-day—hadn’t been back an hour. Where? Oh! at the

Castle, to be sure, where she’d a-been stopping now a goodish spell.

Would she be out to-morrow? Why, in course she would, if she were alive.

Did I know that the hounds were to meet at the Haycock? A-purpose to

draw Soakington Gorse—that’s the new gorse as my lord made down by

Willow Waterless. _Sure_ of a run to-morrow, if you could be sure of

anything on this mortal earth!”

Vindicating his character as a philosopher, by this profound reflection,

my friend withdrew into the privacy of his own stable, and I betook

myself to mine; there, having expressed a qualified approval of my

stud’s general appearance, I decided to ride “Tipple Cider,” as being

the best of them, and then retired to my apartments, to order dinner and

prepare for the morrow.

I was a little disappointed, I confess, to discover that the bird was

flown. I fully expected Miss Merlin would ere this have returned to her

quarters at the Haycock. Also, I was a little tired with my journey and

the late racketing in London. I am a quiet man, and I call supper after

the play the height of dissipation. So I went early to bed, looking

forward with keen excitement to the morrow.

The morning broke delightfully, promising one of those soft, fragrant

days of which I have never seen the counterpart in any climate but our

own, and which, alas! are rare even here. A calm, grey winter’s day in

England, with a faint southern breeze, and occasional gleams of sunshine

descending on the distance, in perpendicular floods of gold, has always

seemed to me the very perfection of weather.

The hounds were to meet at half-past ten. I was dressed and at breakfast

a full hour before. To me, as to all bachelors, this is a very important

meal. I like to enjoy it comfortably, in my dressing-gown and slippers,

before placing myself in the confinement of boots and breeches. I like

to prop up the _Morning Post_, or the last _Quarterly_, or one of the

magazines, against my coffee-pot, and feed my mind alternately with my

body. Now a mouthful of ham, then a prophecy of Argus (pretty sure to be

right) on the next great race; or a bite of toast, and a sentence on the

Cotton question; or chip my egg and break the ice of a new story in

_Fraser_, at one and the same time, washing the whole thing down with a

draught of such coffee as no servant but my own, I verily believe, is

capable of concocting.

I have seen some men breakfast, and that in apparent resignation, with a

button-hook in one hand and a fork in the other, a wife calling to them

in the passage, children running in and out of the room, the gardener

waiting for orders at the door, and their hack snorting and pawing on

the gravel in front. I suppose “the back,” as the adage says, “is made

for the burden.” I am not ungrateful, when I reflect on sundry burdens

that have not been made for my back.

At length, dressed, booted, and spurred, I made my way downstairs into

the bar, where I found Miss Lushington, in a costume of surprising

magnificence far surpassing any of her previous dresses, in a high flow

of spirits, and up to her very ear-rings in the business of her office.

Notwithstanding all she had on hand, however, she did not fail to greet

me with cordial politeness; and here I must do Miss Lushington the

justice to observe, that whatever might be the calls on her attention,

and however numerous the circle of her admirers, offering the accustomed

incense of flattery not unmixed with chaff, she had always a word and a

smile to spare for the humblest and most bashful individual who entered

the magic ring. “Dear heart! Mr. Softly,” said she, “it does me good to

see you in your red coat again. But you’ll surely remember what an

escape you’ve had. You’ll take warning, and not be so venturesome for

the future.”

I was not above feeling a sense of gratification at this allusion to my

supposed recklessness, though I detected something like a smile on Mr.

Naggett’s rosy face, whilst it was uttered.

Yes, there was Mr. Naggett, in full bloom, armed and accoutred for the

chase; sipping a fragrant concoction of gin-and-cloves moreover, as a

further preparation. His horse, a large mealy chestnut, was being led up

and down the yard. I saw it through the bar-window, and thought I never

liked the look of an animal much less. All that art could accomplish

had, however, been done, to set off its natural unsightliness. It was

decorated with a new saddle and bridle, breast-plate, nose-band, and

martingale complete. It was accoutred, moreover, with a gaudy

saddle-cloth, rather too large, and a boot on every leg but one.

The owner, too, was got-up in an alarming manner, and as he would have

said himself, “regardless of expense.” Mr. Naggett’s coat was blue, with

the brightest of buttons, bearing some raised device, in which a

crown-imperial predominated. Mr. Naggett’s waistcoat was scarlet, bound

with yellow braid: and his cream-coloured neckcloth was secured by a red

cornelian pin. A low-crowned hat, white cloth breeches, and high

Napoleon boots, faultless in polish, but spoiled by a pair of thin

racing spurs, very badly put on, completed Mr. Naggett’s resplendent

costume. The man himself seemed in the highest possible spirits; but I

thought I could detect a slight tremor of the hand, despite his morning

stimulant—that tremor which a horse is so apt in discovering,

particularly when he is ridden at water.

“Nice morning, sir,” said Mr. Naggett. He pronounced it _marning_; but

this peculiarity I have observed amongst _ultra_ sporting characters.

“Hope I see you all right again, sir. You’ll want both hands

to-day—heels too, or I’m mistaken. Looks like a hunting _marning_, don’t

it, sir? And there’s a fox lies here in Soakington Gorse, as will give

us a ‘buster,’ I know. Got your ‘riding boots’ on to-day, sir, I dare

say.”

I was somewhat nettled at his tone, three parts jesting, and not above a

quarter respectful; and I replied, wishing to return sarcasm with

sarcasm—

“I shall follow you, Mr. Naggett, if I want to be well with them.”

Such delicate thrusts were completely thrown away upon my friend’s

proof-armour of self-conceit.

“You might do worse, sir,” said he, in perfect good faith. “I’m riding a

real good one to-day. Go as fast as he likes, he can; and jump! He’d

jump a town, if you’d put him at it! I know whose fault it will be if we

get thrown out to-day. Your health, Miss Lushington. What, Ike! be the

hounds come already?”

The latter question was addressed to my old acquaintance, the

earth-stopper, who with many a low _salaam_, and a gentlemanlike air of

excusing himself, which he had acquired in his palmy days with “The

Flamers,” and never completely shaken off, now sidled into the Bar.

“They’re not half-a-mile behind,” said the old man; and then turned to

me, with a “Beg your pardon, sir,” as if to apologise that he had

addressed the other first. I accepted the implied compliment; and could

do no less in return than ask the veteran “What would he have to drink?”

“A little gin, if you please, sir,” replied old Ike, passing the back of

his hand across his mouth. And I saw his wasted features glow and his

eyes brighten, as the liquid fire descended to those regions which

people who are no anatomists call the “cockles of the heart.” He was

still a wonderfully tough old specimen, this earth-stopper. Last night

he had been his rounds on a shaggy white pony that looked like the ghost

of a horse in the dim moonlight; and to-day, having already walked

half-a-dozen miles or so before breakfast, he would follow the hounds

for several hours on foot, and be ready again for his work by nightfall.

I saw the old man’s face brighten once more, as the door opened, and Tom

Turnbull walked into the bar—not to drink anything, as I soon

ascertained, but to inquire if a parcel had been left for his “Missis.”

By the way, I should much like to have my curiosity satisfied as to what

these parcels for farmer’s wives contain, that are continually left at

houses of call. They are invariably small, limp, and a good deal

crushed, wrapped in the softest of paper, and tied with the most tangled

of string.

Mr. Turnbull looked the picture of a sportsman—low-crowned hat,

pepper-and-salt coat, Bedford cord breeches, and brown-topped boots,

thick leather gloves, and a blue bird’s-eye neckcloth. “How goes it,

Tom?” exclaimed a voice I recognised. “Fine dry morning, this. Won’t you

liquor up?”

“Never take anything before I go hunting, thank ye, sir,” replied Tom,

turning round his rosy healthy face and clear eye, presenting a marked

contrast to the dissipated looks of “Jovial Jem,” for it was none other

who now addressed him. The Jovial had been in London, too, during the

frost, and, judging by his appearance, had been engaged in a process

which he termed “keeping the game alive,” but which was likely to be

rapid destruction to the sportsman. He looked as if he had been

partially drunk for a fortnight and was hardly sober now, as indeed

probably was the case. He was attired, nevertheless, in the most

fashionable hunting costume—long scarlet coat with large sleeves, white

waistcoat with an infinity of pockets, blue-satin neckcloth and

turned-down collar, well-cleaned leathers and top-boots, heavy

workmanlike spurs as bright as silver, and a velvet hunting-cap. A cigar

in his mouth of course, and, despite a certain nervous anxiety of

manner, a merry leer in his eye, or it would not have been “The Jovial.”

He had driven Crafty Kate over from The Ashes, and was about to ride a

steady seasoned hunter that his father had given him on Christmas-day.

“Look alive!” observed this well-dressed sportsman when he had greeted

me, as he considered, with sufficient politeness, by slapping me on the

back, and calling me “old one.” “The Earl leaves the Green to a minute,

and it’s ten-thirty now”—words which caused an immediate bustle in the

bar and emptying thereof, nobody but Mr. Naggett having the politeness

to wish Miss Lushington “Good-bye.”

Soakington-Green, as it was called—an open space of verdure, generally

too wet for cricket, and seldom boasting anything more lively than a

worn-out pair of stocks and a few lean geese—was all alive when we

mounted our horses and rode across its level surface. True to his

character for punctuality, the Earl was already moving off, and I did

but catch a glimpse of his long back and tall aristocratic figure as he

jogged along amongst his hounds, in earnest conclave with Will Hawke.

The pack were gathered round their huntsman’s horse, looking, as they

always did, bright as pictures. Glossy in their coats, full of muscle,

ribs just visible, and plenty of covering upon their backs, they stepped

daintily along, with their sterns well up, and that sagacious

quick-witted ready-for-anything expression which is characteristic of

the fox-hound. A party of gentlemanlike-looking men from the Castle,

admirably mounted, followed close upon the hounds; but my eye sought in

vain amongst the troop for the well-known form in its close-fitting

riding-habit, which was beginning to take up far too much of my

attention. The tinge of disappointment I experienced was, however,

rapidly cured by a conversation I happened to overhear between young

Plumtree and a double-distilled dandy from the Castle, riding a

conspicuous white horse.

The “Jovial,” whose shattered nerves could not brook suspense as well as

mine, addressing the elaborate exquisite by the familiar abbreviation of

“Pop” (his real name was Popham Algernon Adolphus Evergreen, so it _did_

come shorter to call him “Pop”), asked him point-blank, “What they had

done with the rest of the party?” to which “Pop” after a vague stare,

and an effort to remember where he was, replied, “Party?—Oh!—Aw!—Yes.

Some of the fellows were late, and went on at once to the Gorse. Emperor

won’t like it (meaning the Earl); but daren’t blow up, because The

Slasher’s gone on with ’em.”

“The Slasher?” exclaimed Plumtree, turning very red and forgetting in

his indignation to be either slang or cool, “Who the devil do you call

The Slasher?”

“Pop” gathered his wits together once more, and replied imperturbably,

“Oh, The Slasher, you know—that Miss Merlin, you know. It’s a name Bight

gave her, you know. I’m sure I don’t know why; but he’s a devilish

clever fellow, Bight, so they say. It wouldn’t be a bad name for a

horse, would it?”

“Pop” relapsing into a brown study at this juncture, it was impossible

to get anything more satisfactory out of that priceless piece of

porcelain-ware; and the “Jovial,” blowing off his indignation in clouds

of cigar-smoke, trotted on to have a look at the hounds, young Evergreen

running his eye over myself and horse with a supercilious stare that, in

my opinion, did no credit to his good manners. A leading duchess,

however, in London, had stated her opinion that “Lady Evergreen’s boy

was the best-dressed and the most impudent young one of his year;” so

“Pop” was very much the fashion in consequence.

A little wide of the hounds, in order to do no mischief, and a little

clear of the horses, lest the four-year-old should prove too handy with

his heels, I observe my former acquaintance Tips, the rough-rider, in

the full glory of his profession. He had so completely singled himself

out from the crowd, that he could not but attract attention. Rather

neater in his dress than when I had seen him last, and with a clean

white neckcloth of clerical proportions, Mr. Tips sat down in the saddle

as no man but a professional horse-breaker ever _does_ sit—an attitude

only to be acquired by the habit of keeping constantly on his guard

against the agreeable varieties of rearing, kicking, plunging, turning

round, and lying down, adopted by a thoroughly refractory pupil when his

“dander” is up. Tips, prepared for any or all of these vagaries at a

moment’s notice, kept his knees well forward, his feet home in the

stirrups, his hands apart, holding the reins rather long, for he likes,

he says, “to give them plenty of rope” when they begin throwing their

heads about, and his short sturdy cutting whip ready in his right.

To-day, however, these precautionary measures seemed merely to arise

from the force of habit, as the animal he was riding—a lengthy

good-looking brown, on short legs, with long low shoulders, a long coat,

a long head, and a long tail—looked as docile and good-tempered a

four-year-old as ever was crossed, and played with its rusty bit,

attached, as a horse-breaker’s bit always is, to the most

insecure-looking and weather-beaten of bridles, with a good-humoured

cheerfulness calculated to inspire the utmost confidence in its rider.

“You’ve got a pleasanter mount than usual to-day, Mr. Tips,” I remarked,

coming alongside of him; whereat the four-year-old tucked its long tail

in, and gave a playful kick or two, snorting the while in pure gaiety of

heart. “Are you going to make a hunter of him, or have you only brought

him out for exercise?”

Mr. Tips dived towards his fully-occupied hands with his head, as the

nearest approach he could afford towards touching his hat.

“Never seen hounds till to-day, sir,” he replied. “Sweet young horse he

is, sir, as ever looked through a bridle; a kind animal, too, both in

the stable and out; as mild as a milch cow, and as handy as a

ladies’-maid.”

Just then the object of our joint praises, startled, pardonably enough,

by a tinker’s caravan that had taken up a conspicuous position on the

Green, shied violently away from the alarming object, and did not

recover its equanimity without a succession of bounds and plunges, such

as would have unseated most men ignominiously, but which produced no

perceptible effect on the demeanour of the experienced Tips, his

affability only becoming, if possible, more conspicuous than before.

Lost in admiration of my companion’s skill—for I confess to a great

weakness for real finished horsemanship such as in my own person I have

never yet been able to acquire—and taken up with the movements of the

young horse and the conversation of its rider, I had not remarked that

we had let the hounds slip on so far ahead as to find ourselves a long

way behind the whole moving cavalcade, proceeding leisurely towards the

gorse. An exclamation from Mr. Tips roused me to the true state of

affairs.

“Best shog on a little, sir,” said he, with a sparkle of excitement in

his eye. “Blessed if they haven’t reached the covert already! and are

putting in. There’s a short cut; this way, Mr. Softly, if you’ll be so

good as follow me.”

With these words, Tips thrust open an awkward hand-gate, the young one

pushing it with his chest, as I felt convinced at the time, far more

handily than Tipple Cider would have done, and entered a low swampy

pasture patched with rushes, and stretching right away to the further

end of the gorse from that where the hounds were put in. Shutting my

eyes to the great probability there was of our heading the fox, and

resolving to shut my ears to the expostulations that would too surely

accompany such a catastrophe, I followed my leader along the pasture,

rather in a state of nervous trepidation, in no measure soothed by the

view I now obtained of the assembled field, amongst whom I had no

difficulty in recognising the well-known riding-habit.

Tips sitting down in the saddle, put the four-year-old into a lurching

awkward kind of gallop, and I followed him at a venture, Tipple Cider

raking and snatching at his bridle in disagreeable exuberance of

spirits, as if he were rather short of work.

There was a low rail at the extremity of the pasture, fortifying what

had once been a gap into the covert itself, a shelter I was most anxious

to reach before the eagle-eye of the Earl could spy me out in so

untoward a position. I had already made up my mind for a considerable

_détour_ which would bring me to a friendly hand-gate (I hate the

foolish practice of jumping when hounds are not running), when I saw

Tips charge this said rail with the utmost coolness; the four-year-old

resenting such an unnecessary demonstration, by turning short round, and

kicking out violently at the offending timber.

“Give us a lead, Mr. Softly, if it isn’t taking too great a liberty,”

said Tips, as quietly as if this cool request were the most natural

thing in the world; adding, as a clinching argument, “_You’ve_ on a

hunter, _I know_.”

The rail, though not high, was strong and ugly. There was a nasty deep

blind ditch on the taking-off side, and nothing but gorse-bushes to land

in. I did not seem to care much about entering the covert at this point;

but whilst I was deliberating the matter in my own mind, and Tipple

Cider was doing all he could to get at the rail, tail first or anyhow, a

horn resounded from the opposite side of the covert; the music of the

hounds running, which had greeted us ever since we got within ear-shot,

suddenly ceased: though I could see nothing of them, I could distinctly

hear the rush of horses galloping up the adjacent pasture. It was

evident they had gone away; and equally incontestable that we had lost

our start. Tips blazed up into excitement at once; he made no more ado,

but caught the four-year-old short by the head, rammed both spurs in,

and, notwithstanding an abortive kick or two, forced him over the rail,

striking it hard with fore and hind legs. Tipple Cider, fired with

emulation, took the bit in his teeth, and had me over it, clear and

clean, before I was aware. The next instant, leaping and plunging

through the gorse-bushes, I was following Tips at the best pace I could

muster, to get after the hounds.

My blood rose with the motion, my horse dropped to his bit, my pilot

chose an easy, though devious path; if everything had gone right, I

think at that moment I could have ridden fairly and boldly enough.

As we rounded the slight acclivity on which the gorse was planted, a

beautiful panorama was spread out before us. Already two fields ahead,

the hounds were running hard, evidently with a capital scent, followed

at different intervals by the scattering field, all fresh as fire, and

every man taking the place to which he felt his skill and daring

entitled him. Nearest ourselves I recognised Mr. Naggett, striding away

on the mealy chestnut with a great display of enthusiasm and hard

riding, his feet stuck out, his elbows up to his ears, and his blue

coat-tails flying in the wind. He was diverging, nevertheless, slightly

from the line of chase, and making vigorously for the gate, which old

Ike, whose active feet had already taken him there, was hurriedly

unfastening. Two or three dark coats and the second whip seemed also

inclined to avail themselves of this convenient egress; the body of the

field, however, were charging the fence boldly (a fair hedge and ditch),

making for the places that had been leaped by their leaders in the first

flight. I saw Plumtree jump it on his steady hunter; but I observed by

the way in which he pulled the old horse out of his stride, upsetting

the equanimity even of that experienced animal, that his nerves were by

no means up to the mark. The Earl and Will Hawke, a hundred yards or so

ahead of these, were close to the hounds. “Pop,” too, on the white

horse, had got a capital start, and was blazing away as if he had a

second horse in every field, and a spare neck in his pocket. Rather in

front of him, and alongside the hounds, rode the dauntless Miss Merlin,

sailing away on “Lady-Killer.” I recognised his long swish-tail even at

that distance; taking everything as it came in his stride, and diverging

neither to right nor left.

Even at the pace I was going, my heart beat faster at the sight. If such

were wanting, this was indeed an additional inducement to catch them at

any price. I caught hold of Tipple Cider’s head, and for a few resolute

minutes I do believe the deluded animal thought he had got a regular

“out-and-outer” on his back.

The hounds bent somewhat to the right. Tips, who had an eye like a hawk,

perceived it in a moment; and turning round on the saddle,

good-naturedly motioned me to follow him. By diverging a little, we got

upon a succession of sound headlands, with fair easy fences; the hounds

kept turning towards us, and we began to overhaul them rapidly. Excited

as I was, I could not but admire the masterly manner in which the

rough-rider handled the young one at his leaps. We were getting on

gloriously. The first flight, including Miss Merlin, although a couple

of fields distant, were scarcely nearer the hounds than ourselves. I

rejoiced to think that I should drop amongst them, as it were, from the

clouds, and assume my place in the front rank.

A momentary hesitation, another down-wind turn of the hounds, and there

was but one fence between ourselves and the pack. My leader charged it

resolutely; I prepared to follow him. It was an ugly place—a downhill

gallop at it, a high straggling fence, sedgy banks, and something that

was more of a watercourse than a ditch running on the far side. Tips was

as eager as a glutton, but the young one’s heart failed him the last

stride; and, although his rider had him in such a grasp that he could

not refuse, the powder was out of him, and he jumped short, dropping his

hind legs, and rolling into the next field. Tips was hardly clear of his

horse before he was on him again; and I do not believe he lost

half-a-dozen strides by the fall. Why did I not follow? My heart failed

me. I thought it would be rash to go where another horse had fallen,

though I had seen exactly how it happened; and Tipple Cider was shaking

his head, as much as to say, “Why won’t you let me have a drive?” So _I

went to look for another place_.

That sentence explains everything. Need I say how, the further I rode

along the fence, the deeper and wider it became? Need I confess that I

was eventually compelled to creep ignominiously through a gap in a green

lane, the disappointed Tipple Cider grinding my leg against a tree and

crushing my hat amongst its branches, in his disgust; or that I

proceeded along this convenient alley as far as it lasted with renewed

hopes, dashed by a bitter sense of vexation and shame? A stern chase is

a long chase, by land as well as by sea; and there is no process, in my

opinion, so utterly disheartening as that of trying to catch hounds in a

run.

Sometimes I heard their notes, borne by the westerly breeze in

tantalising harmony on my longing ears. Sometimes I caught sight of a

few scattered riders in the distance, a lot of cattle herded together in

a corner, or a flock of sheep formed up in military line, and not yet

recovered from their panic. I rode on like a man in a dream; minutes

seemed to lengthen themselves into hours, and I was surprised to find my

horse so fresh after such prolonged exertions. At last, rounding the

corner of the well-known Tangler’s Copse, and speculating vaguely how I

should ever cross the Sludge, supposing the chase to be still forward in

the same direction, I caught a view of the whole assemblage, not a

quarter of a mile off, on the opposite side of the brook. It was obvious

they had killed their fox, after a capital run. Horses were being led

about, men on foot were standing in groups, some were in the act of

remounting—it was probable that the run had been over some little time.

Distinct against the sky stood out Miss Merlin’s graceful figure,

leaning forward to caress the redoubtable Lady-Killer, who had carried

her so well. In close attendance, I made out the white hunter of the

exquisite “Pop.” I should think that poor beast must have had enough of

it.

I was deliberating in my own mind whether I should not be fool enough to

ride at the Sludge in cold blood, when my motions were decided for me by

a general break-up of the distant party; Miss Merlin and her attendant

cavaliers taking the direct road for the castle. It was evident she did

not at present mean to return to the Haycock. Moodily and dejectedly, I

too took my homeward way. I was disgusted with myself—disgusted with

hunting—disgusted with life. I should have liked to know what the hounds

had done, too; but I felt I could not have brooked the good-humoured

curiosity of Mr. Tips, nor the self-sufficient pity of Mr. Naggett, who

would be sure to swear he had gone better than he really did.

Espying these two sportsmen at a turn in the road gradually overtaking

me, I set spurs to Tipple Cider, and rattled back to the Haycock as fast

as I could trot. Arrived there, I found the dapper groom in marching

order, getting out his horses for a journey. He had received orders that

morning to move them on to Melton; and I have never set eyes on Miss

Merlin from that day to this.

UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.

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● Transcriber’s Notes:

○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.

○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only

when a predominant form was found in this book.

○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).